I. Field of the Invention
Efforts to administer liquid medication to infants and young children often degenerate into contests of wills, with the infant enjoying all of the advantages. Unpalatable medication frequently ends up liberally distributed everywhere but in the infant's stomach. The struggle to insert a spoon, dropper or syringe into the infant's mouth actually risks injury to the baby's mouth and eyes. And, often the child swallows only an unknown portion of the liquid, leaving the dosage completely uncertain. Repeated dosages become even more difficult, as the infant learns to recognize an unpleasant experience and becomes more adept at resisting it.
Our invention relates to a liquid medication dispenser that provides fully controllable, accurately metered mixing of liquid medication with palatable beverages such as milk, juice, infant formula, or any other pleasant-tasting liquid inside the nipple of a baby bottle. Both the amount of dilution and the speed of administration of the medication can be controlled independently of each other, in order to produce a mixture that remains palatable. The user is able to instantly adjust the flow of medicine in response to the child's reactions. The familiar shape of the baby bottle, and the ability to start feeding before the admixture of medication begins, soothes the infant into accepting the mixture with little or no protest. The liquid medication dispenser is graduated, enabling precise determination of the amount of medication administered.
Embodiments of our invention include an inexpensive device featuring an integral, graduated syringe; a disposable version intended for high-volume users such as hospitals or clinics; and a design intended for use with pre-packaged, pre-measured doses of liquid medication. Our preferred embodiment is a reusable device in which separate, graduated syringes are used in order to facilitate filling and/or heating the juice, milk or infant formula, while improving the ease and accuracy of loading a syringe with medicine.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Commercially-available devices for administering liquid medication to infants are limited to spoons and to plastic droppers or syringes not capable of use with baby bottles. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,348 (Lemmons), which describes such a plastic syringe and a device for filling it. The infant is presented with an evil-tasting medicine full strength, administered from an unfamiliar source. Most children rapidly learn that the most satisfying response is to spit out the offending liquid.
Dilution of the liquid medication in milk is not a satisfactory solution. In the case of extremely unpalatable medications, the taste of the milk may become unacceptable. And, if the infant does not finish drinking, the problems of determining how much medicine has been administered, and completing the prescribed dosage, can become acute.
Several references disclose medication dispensers that mimic the familiar shapes of baby bottles or pacifiers, but that still provide the liquid medication full strength. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,176,705 (Noble); 5,078,734 (Noble); 5,129,532 (Martin); and 3,426,755 (Clegg). Other references disclose dispensers tipped with nipples. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,077,279 (Mitchell) and 3,645,413 (Mitchell). An insert for a baby bottle also has been proposed; the insert would convert a baby bottle into a liquid medication dispenser by fitting a vial into the bottle. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,701 (Roth, et. al.). But, dilution of the medication with milk would be impossible in the Roth device; the infant would receive undiluted medication from the nipple--a practice that may make it difficult even to bottle-feed the infant later (because of the child's memory of the unpleasant taste), and that does nothing to alleviate problems with palatability of the medication.
Another reference, U.S. Pat. No. 5,244,122 (Botts), discloses a apparatus having two separate openings for different fluids that extend into the tip of the baby bottle nipple. Thus, botts, unlike the present invention, does not teach a device in which medicine and milk or other diluting fluid is mixed in the nipple area. Botts, further, unlike the present invention, teaches a device in which the medication is not controllable by the person administering the medication. The child sucks the medicine in from the very start and then when the medicine is gone, the child sucks air directly. When the nipple assembly is used with a syringe, the child will be able to suck directly on the nipple tube, drawing some medicine out and thus taking some control away from the operator.
Still another reference, U.S. Pat. No. 3,682,344 (Lopez), discloses a small, flexible enclosure on the exterior of the nipple itself, which is said to be suitable for dispensing medication or flavoring agents. Lopez design, however, does not provide any dilution nor allow control of the rate of dosage. And, there is no method for measuring the amount of medication dispensed.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,680,441 (Krammer) discloses a baby bottle with a medicine dropper attached to its exterior; a small tube leads from the dropper through the exterior of the nipple itself, to one of a plurality of perforations in the tip of the nipple. Therefore, the liquid medication is not diluted before entering the infant's mouth. As a result, there is little improvement in palatability. Also, there is the chance of medicine being left over in the tube, thus contributing to greater inaccuracy in the dosage delivered. Further, the design does not allow the use of the nipple or sipper top to which the child is normally accustomed. And, the attachment of the dropper to the exterior of the bottle changes the appearance of the bottle and would make it quite difficult to operate the dropper and to hold the bottle with one hand, while soothing or cradling the infant with the other.
Still another reference, U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,895 (Roskilly), describes an attachment that replaces the cap and nipple of an ordinary baby bottle. The attachment comprises a threaded cap that sets the nipple off-center from the axis of the bottle; a mixing chamber below the nipple and communicating directly with it; a restricted passageway leading from the interior of the bottle to the mixing chamber, and a syringe assembly (also communicating with the mixing chamber) that projects sideways from the threaded cap at an angle of about 45.degree. to the axis of the bottle. (See Roskilly's FIG. 2). In another embodiment (FIG. 3), Roskilly suggests a syringe assembly that projects at a 90.degree. angle to the bottle axis, and that feeds medication downward into the bottle in a direction away from the nipple.
Neither of Roskilly's embodiments allows for controlled dilution of the medication, together with the ability to further dilute medication already injected should the taste become unpalatable. And, neither would be suitable for one-hand operation. Both involve large, axially-projecting syringes which present hazards for the infant's mouth and eyes during operation.
In short, until we made our invention there was no device suitable for one-handed operation for administering liquid medication to infants in admixture with juice, milk or formula at a controlled rate and dilution, while providing accurate measurement of the amount of medication administered.